Saturday, March 1, 2014

The Theme for March is Warm/Cool

Hello Dear Friends, Gina here. Happy first day of March! This month's theme is "Warm/Cool" and it is one of my favorite approaches to art journaling and sketchbook painting. Here are some examples of artwork as a direct result of using this style of warm analogous color &/or cool analogous color technique.

************When I say analogous, I mean neighboring colors along a color wheel.

The color wheel has warm and cool colors organized in a continuous transition of hues. Painting analogously for me means selecting 4 - 5 colors of either the warm or cool color temperatures. As long as these colors are adjacent to one another, you are painting with analogous colors.

TIP: This rainbow sequence is how I organize my watercolor palette. Notice the cool tones and warm tones. Which colors are you drawn to?

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FOR THIS MONTH'S CHALLENGE, HERE ARE SOME GUIDELINES:* Select warm analogous colors from your paint palette or fabric scraps and see what you come up with (maybe a mixed-media piece with reds, orange, yellows & gold)* Select cool analogous colors from your paint or fabric supplies and see what you come up with (again, make anything with blues & greens as a dominant color scheme)* If you're motivated to, try both warm and cool colored projects. We'd love to see what you create!

Here's my demo of an art journal spread using cool analogous colors. Ultramine blue, manganiese blue, lime green, turquoise and bright violet were used. This painting was finished in less than 30 minutes.

TIP: work fast so that you're not too attached to the outcome! This is just your sketchbook and your happy place to experiment, remember :).

Done. I see lots of areas for future journal writing on the right page, up in the sky and mountain.

TIP: for these little yellow flowers, just take your brush and splatter a mix of lemon yellow + white gouache.

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To learn how I painted this still-life below using a warm analogous color scheme,

come on over to my blog(and see more ways I organize my art supplies).

Thank you for visiting and happy creating with this month's warm/cool sketchbook challenge!

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NOTE: the last day of each month we have a slide show of the Sketchbook Challenge Flickr group's workfor that month's theme. To have your artwork in the slideshow at the end of this month, be sure to tag it on flickr with mar958.